Slayers UNIVERSE
by Ivory Feather
Summary: 'I wonder when being out here in the never-ending cosmos lost its special touch-...' After the events of TRY, Lina-tachi is assigned to guard the mazoku for eternity; Complications? How could there be any complications? [Spoiler-i-fic, most likely.]


Slayers UNIVERSE  
  
a Slayers fic by Ivory Feather  
  
'After Valgarv tried to purify the world, it seemed like everything was gonna be okay. Then the Mazoku started making trouble again. This time, I guess L-Sama was of the opinion that the world had had just about enough of trying to be destroyed, so she sealed them away. However, like all spells, this one fluctuated. Since they had such massive power as a whole, someone had to guard them throughout eternity. Yeah, I know; what a bum job, right? I got volunteered. So along with Zel and Ameria, I get to watch the Mazoku. In space. Forever.'  
  
-Lina Inverse  
  
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Chapter I - The Beginning of the End... Again  
  
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'I wonder when being out here in the never-ending cosmos lost its special touch. After the first hundred years? The second? The third? Maybe it was after four hundred years? Tomorrow is the five hundreth anniversary of my position out here. I can literally catch falling stars in my hands. I could reach out and touch the sky without standing on my toes. I'm breathing in the dust of the cosmos with every immortal breath I take.  
  
How come I don't care anymore?  
  
This really is a thankless job. Living my life out here, with no one but a depressed chimera and a Justice loving princess for company. Sometimes I even miss Gourry's abject stupidity. I always wondered why L- Sama didn't send him up here too. I guess she needed someone to keep the peace on Terra. He probably married Sylphiel, and forgot about me around twelve point five seconds after I left, if L-Sama didn't erase his memory beforehand.  
  
It's been almost five hundred years though. I doubt he's still alive. He's definitely not alive.  
  
How about Firia? I wonder if Ryuuzoku are immortal.  
  
My thoughts are almost as unorganized as my life.'  
  
Lina Inverse, sorcery genius extrordinaire, lay on her back; she was staring up at the cold heavens that she had been staring at for her entire life, only they were much closer now. Ameria was on duty now, monitoring the thousands upon thousands of mini-shields that kept the Mazoku from wreaking havoc on the slowly healing world below them.  
  
The fire haired sorceress sat up and cast her sullen ruby glance at the princess. Ameria sat at the edge of the floating chunk of rock they occupied, her pearl white aura shining brightly as she magickally probed the surfaces and energy fluctuations of the plethora of pods. The first time they had gone over all of them, it had almost killed them. Lina could still remember the little-death she had fallen into after her magickal energies were sapped; and then sapped further past her breaking point.  
  
However, after almost five hundred years she, Zel, and Ameria were able to do it without breaking a sweat. Therefore, there was almost no more danger to their physical or mental forms.  
  
Almost. The space wyrms were kind of a problem. Every so often one of them would break a hole in the defensive sheilding around their little flat moon, and a tide of them would come pouring in. The blue scaled, bug eyed fiends were pretty weak against the Terran based magick the three companions weilded; but like bugs that die when sprayed with that new 'bug spray' junk they were manufacturing on Terra now, if enough come at you, some of 'em will invariably bite you. They really were the parasites of the galaxy.  
  
Lost in her thoughts again, the sorceress flopped over onto her back, fighting the urge to smash a sizeable hole in the ground beside her. The only perks of this job was vacation time. One day every ten years, when the full blood moon shone on Friday the thirteenth in October, one of the three guardians was allowed to teleport down to Terra for a day. It just so happened that on the one million eight hundred and two thousand five hundreth day, which for all intensive purposes was tomorrow, it was Lina's turn to go down to Terra and see what had changed. She was looking forward to it immensely.  
  
  
  
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Within one of the millions of unremarkable shielded pods, a conic entity stirred. For one day short of five hundred years, it had been watching the three companions on their petite planetoid. Like them, it had been testing its power constantly, knowing that they would become stronger and stronger as time passed. The little one was even now probing the area about its pod... it 'smiled' an infuriatingly calm 'smile,' and without even a second thought, lashed out experimentally with the power still under its control, and sat back to witness the repercussions.  
  
  
  
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Suddenly, pure astral power flashed against Ameria's 'vision' all but blinding her. She cried out suddenly, and wildly 'looked' around with her mage sight to see if she could pinpoint the site of the power surge.  
  
When she found it, she went as pale as parchment, and turned around, azure eyes wide with disbelief and fear to face the now alert Lina who was staring right back. Her friend was every bit as tense as she was, if not the lovely sick colour the princess of Seiruune was now sporting. The sorceress got up, and moved quickly towards Ameria, who was now trembling slightly.  
  
"Ameria..." When she got no answer, Lina reached for her thin shoulders, shaking her roughly. "Ameria! What's wrong. What happened?"  
  
"O...One of the shields..." was all she could stutter out, trying and failing to gather herself mentally. Whose pod...? she thought, wracking her already vastly disorganized mental structure for the information. Whose pod was it? Six hundreth row, sixtieth column, sixth shield... a chil of foreboding ran through her slight body, feeling Lina shake her still, the force of the sorceress' worry and preoccupation so great that her teeth rattled, blind spots from the magickal explosion still flashing before her blank and confused eyes.  
  
Oh my gods...  
  
"L...Lina-san! St-stop that!" Ameria suddenly cried at the raging sorceress, who reluctantly relinquished her hold on the younger girl's shoulders.  
  
"Have you figured it out? Whose shield, whose shield was it? What happened?" A list of unanswered questions issued from Lina's lips as easily as water from a free flowing fountain... or in Lina's case, a spray of water from a raging rapid. The princess afforded no answer to any of them, so the the red-headed firebrand decided to figure it out for herself. She sat at the edge of the planetoid, and cast her wide astral vision upon the entire cursed lot like a net, measuring the fluctuations. One spot in particular burned her vision, and she turned upon it, grasping the identification as easily as she had the first time she had checked.  
  
The one with all the wards.  
  
The one they had been so careful to check...  
  
Wonderful. Thought Lina wryly, turning away from the foreboding spot in her vision to see one blue skinned chimera vault over the pile of rocks blocking the way to their crude encampment.  
  
"Lina. What's wrong. I heard Ameria scream, and..." He began, before the sorcery genius held up her hand for silence, which was given grudgingly.  
  
"It's Xelloss. The fractured pod belongs to Xelloss."  
  
Ameria nodded, both dumbly and grimly.  
  
Zelgadis just stared for a moment.  
  
Lina sighed silently within her serious exterior.  
  
What about my vacation...  
  
  
  
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Notes: Gah, this was too short for my tastes. I hope to get longer as things go on, and the plot thickens. Right now it's about as thick as rat soup. n.n; Any more cups of water, and it'll ceace to be soup at all.  
  
I promise, no original characters this time.  
  
Well, no major ones. If it's been 500 years, there have to be some new supporting ones.  
  
Otherwise, what would happen to the plot?  
  
^^ I don't own Slayers, so don't sue me.  
  
You'd get more money by picking a nickel out of the gutter anyway. 


End file.
